Mustang, Oklahoma -December 30, 2013

Hey!

Well it really was great getting to talk to all of you on Christmas this past week!  I can't believe that Christmas it already over and we are getting ready for the new year!  I know I have said it before, but it is crazy how fast the time is flying by.  It really seems like it was just a couple days ago that I hit my year mark.  I'm glad that I still have some time left cause I am defiantly not ready to come home yet.  Sorry Mom, but I like being a missionary.

With last week being Christmas and everything that was happening, we weren't left with as much time as we would have liked to do missionary work.  And It has been even harder to get out and do stuff because we have been out of miles for the past week, so we have had to do quite a bit of biking.  I really enjoy going out and riding my bike, but as soon as you have to go and bike with a shirt, tie, slacks, and dress shoes ALL of the fun that comes with biking is gone.  It is not fun to bike in missionary attire at all.  I finally managed to meet one of our investigators.  Yep you read that right, I've only met one investigator.  Her name is Halie and she has been taught by missionaries for quite a while now.  when we went over to see her she told us that she wasn't going to get baptized into the church, but Elder Davis and I both feel like she is going to get baptized.  We are defiantly going to keep teaching her.  

We were able to visit a couple of other people this past week.  We aren't really teaching any of them though.  On Saturday evening we went and visited a part member family that Elder Davis was working with before I got here.   While we are talking with them we found out that Brother Thiemann actually grew up in Preston and went to Preston High.  He said that Woodward sounded really familiar to him, but he wasn't sure.  So once again I have met someone who might know our family.  It is a really small world.  Just before we left we asked Sister Thiemann if she would like to start taking the lessons.  She didn't actually answer the question for herself, which was really disappointing.  Brother Thiemann answered and told us that she had taken them before and that she was fine with where she was now.  Elder Davis and I both thought that the only reason he said that was because he didn't want to come back to church because he was afraid he would get a calling.  Elder Davis and I both thought that if she had answered the question for herself that we would have gotten a completely different answer.  So that was little bit of a bummer.  We will keep trying though, because nothing will stop the work of the Lord!

The only other person I have met so far is a potential investigator named Jeff.  And guess what else... He is Black.  He is not from Haiti though.  It is kinda funny that I have now met another black man named Jeff that we could potentially start to teach.

We don't have anything exciting happening for New Years.  I think that we are probably going to need to be in our apartment by 5 tomorrow.  So there isn't anything exciting that is going to happen.  It is pretty boring.  I will probably end up sleeping through the new year.  

Well I think that about does it for me.  I told you about most of what has happened when I called.  If I forgot anything I will be sure to let you know.  I love you all and I hope you have a great week!  Good luck with taking Gislene in to get the rest of her shots.  She will probably be mad at whoever takes her to get the shot.  I'm glad that it isn't me.  

Love, Elder Cameron Woodward

Mustang, Oklahoma -December 23, 2013

Hey everyone!

Well it has been quite the week for me out here in Oklahoma.  There was a lot that happened leading up to transfers so that I could get ready to leave.  Monday and Tuesday were mostly filled up by me packing up all of my stuff.  I never realized how much stuff I had gathered while I was in Woodward until I had to start packing it all up.  That is my least favorite part about transfers is packing everything up.  I sent a package home with a bunch of extra stuff I didn't need with me, so you should have gotten it by now.  If you haven't, it should be there soon.  Monday evening I decided to take a little break from packing.  Elder Birch and I went to the birthday party for Alexa. She is the daughter of Mindl, who is a less active we had been working with.  It was really funny when we first showed up because Mindl's other two daughters, Emma and Aubri, saw us walk in, so they yelled hi to us then ran over to drag us into the room where everything was happening because Elder Birch and I didn't come in as quickly as they wanted us to.  We spent about an hour there before we went out to say bye to some other people.  We spent the rest of Monday evening saying bye to people before it was time to go back to the apartment.  Then it was back to packing.  

Tuesday was filled with a lot of the same stuff as Monday, packing and saying bye to people.  We went over to see Mindl and her family again so I could actually say bye since I didn't get to on Monday.  After that we went to say bye to the Windholz family.  We talked for a little bit and then they asked me to share one last message with their family before we left, so I did.  The reason I was glad that we went over so I could say bye was because later that night when we stopped by the Egnew's to say bye, Sister Egnew told me that they had gone over to the Windholz earlier that day as well.  Sister Egnew told me that when they had gone over Sister Windholz was "singing my praises."  Sister Egnew said that it was because of something I had said or done that had a impact on the Windholz's daughter who was a less active, but then decided she needed to come back to church.  So it was really cool to hear about how I had actually help someone out and help them come back to church.  I know that that happens every day, but I thought it was really cool to actually hear about the effect I had one someone, because I had no idea that I had helped Sister Windholz's daughter that much.

After we left the Windholz we went to say bye to Herman and Carolyn.  It was really hard to have to say bye to them because the entire time I was up in Woodward I worked really closely with them.  That is one reason I don't like staying in an area for so long is because it gets a lot harder to say bye to people.  But that is life.

Wednesday was transfers, so we got up bright and early so we could make the long drive down to the city.  We made it safe and sound and got everything switched around,  then we started the 20 minute drive to Mustang.  That was pretty much the highlight of Wednesday.  There wasn't much that happened other then getting unpacked and starting to finding my way around the area.  That has pretty much been everything sine I got here. Saturday morning we woke up to half an inch of ice on our car that we had to get off before we could drive to our zone conference.  It was a good thing I though ahead and decided it would be good to go start the car before we had to leave because the other three Elders I live with didn't think of that.  Oh that is the other big news.  I am in another 4 man apartment.  So that was fun.  Friday was a super cool day.  We got to go and do service for the Salvation Army by helping them deliver Christmas presents to the families in need.  It was really cool to see the gratitude that those people had for what we were doing.  It was really cool and the Spirit was so strong while we were helping them!

So that is pretty much it for my week.  I'll answer all of your questions when I cann on Christmas.  I'm not exactly sure when I will be calling because we have had three families invite us over to eat for breakfast lunch and dinner.  I promise I will call at some point though.  You will know when I call because I will be on the other end of the phone.  I love you all!  Merry Christmas!  

Love Elder Cameron Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -December 16, 2013

Hey!

Last week was a pretty good one for us.  We actually managed to see quite a few people, and we saw some people multiple times last week.  Well we just saw Ashley multiple times last week.  We saw everyone else once.  Ashley is still doing really well!  Last week we taught her about keeping the sabbath day holy and the law of tithing.  Both of the lessons went super well.  She didn't have any concerns or problems with either of those commandment and she committed to live them both.  It was really cool.  Unfortunately we didn't see her at church yesterday which was a real bummer.  Hopefully she will start coming soon so that she can get baptized.  

We saw Jeff a couple of times as well.  He is still doing really well and is still loving the gospel!  We have been reviewing all of the lessons with him since he was baptized, so that is what we did last week.  He still remembers everything from the first time he heard it, so our lessons with him turn into him teaching us.  It is really fun!  Herman and Carolyn are doing great as well.  We had dinner with them last week, and we tried to get them out to a lesson with us as well, but Herman got sick so they couldn't make it.

So now the only thing left to really talk about it what is going to happen with transfers.  We got transfer call last night, and we found out that I am going to be leaving Woodward and going to Mustang, Oklahoma.  Leave it to the Okies to name a city after wild horses.  It is weird to think that after 5 months I am going to be leaving Woodward.  Oh well it was fun up here.  There is more work to do.  

Well that is all from me.  I love you all!  Have a great day at Disneyland, and have a great week! 

Love Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -December 9, 2013

Hey!

Well yet again, another week has come and gone.  And in another week I will hit my 14 month mark.  I still can't believe how fast it is going by!  I do know that it is going by way to fast though!  There's nothing I can do to slow it down, so I am just taking each and every day as it comes at me. 

Elder Birch and I had an interesting week here in Woodward.  As always there were lots of good and bad things that happened.  As for the bad things, it has been so miserably cold here.  Last Tuesday was the last time we had any relatively good weather.  It was about 70 degrees then on Wednesday it dropped below 20 degrees, and has been at or below 20 since then. But that isn't that bad having grown up in Utah.  The thing that made it so miserable was the wind chill.  Whenever the wind blows here, it is so cold and blows so hard that it blows right through everything that you are wearing and freezes you to the bone.  Then the wind keeps blowing and so you get even more cold.  It is just fantastic.  The wind is really the only thing that makes the weather bad here. 

Other then the weather being so cold there isn't much else that happened.  We weren't able to see any of our investigators this past week.  The highlight of our week came from a mormon.org referral that we got.  About halfway through the week we got a referral for a man named Jose.  It turns out he saw an ad online to receive a free copy of the Bible.  We didn't know that when we first went over because we didn't get the whole message.  When we went over to see him we told him we were missionaries and he let us right in his home.  That is when he told us that he had asked for a Bible.  We didn't have one with us so we sat down and talked to him for a little while.  He asked us where we got the nickname "mormon" from, so we told him it came from the Book of Mormon.  We then went on to give him a brief introduction to the Book of Mormon and he really took interest when we told him the Christ came to the Americas to teach the people here.  I felt like he really liked that.  We then told him about Christ's Ministry and the Great Apostasy, then the Restoration through Joseph Smith.  We ended up giving him a copy of the Book of Mormon, and he told us we could stop by again.  Needless to say Elder Birch and I were both really excited about that.

Well that is all from me this week.  Love you all!  Merry Christmas!

Love Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -December 2, 2013

Hey everyone!

 

Life is going pretty well for me out here!  Not much has changed.  We found out that this transfer is going to be a week shorter then we originally expected.  This transfer was supposed to end on Christmas day, but they moved it forward a week to the 18th.   I'm not really excited for it because Ashley's baptismal date is set for the 21st.  So I might not even get to be here for her baptism.  

 

Thanksgiving was a pretty boring day.  Most of the day we sat around our apartment and did nothing since we weren't supposed to go out proselyting, and we could only go somewhere if we were invited.  We got to go over to a members home for dinner, and that ended up being the highlight of our day.  Dinner itself was pretty good, but it wasn't like Thanksgiving dinner at home.  It may still be a year away, but I am excited for Thanksgiving at home next year!  

 

We saw Ashley twice last week and everything seems to be going really well with her.  We were a little worried going over to see her the first time last week cause we were going to teach the law of chastity.  It turns out we didn't have much to be worried about.  She committed to live the law of chastity, and didn't have any really big concerns about it.  So Elder Birch and I were both really excited that it went so well and there weren't any hurdles in our way.  

 

That was about it for my week.  Nothing too exciting happened to me.  I hope you all have a great week!  Love you all!

 

Love Elder Woodward

 

P.S. We just found out that USPS will not be forwarding letters and packages from the mission office anymore.  So from now on we have been asked to have all letters and packages sent directly to us at our apartments.  I am sure this is going to be posted on the blog, so until this transfer is over please send mail to me at:

 

Elder Cameron Woodward

3311 22nd St. Apt. # 153

Woodward, OK 73801

 

Thanks a ton!

Woodward, Oklahoma -November 25, 2013

Hey everyone,

This past week was a very interesting one.  We didn't get to work up here in Woodward as much as we would have liked to, but I thought that the trade off was pretty good.  The reason that we didn't get to do as much as we would have liked to was because we had mission tour this past week.  Elder Craig A. Cardon came out to my mission this past week.  It was really good, but I will talk more about that later.  Because of the mission tour and bad weather, we had to leave Woodward a lot earlier then we had anticipated on Thursday so we could make it down to OKC before the storm got bad.  So after weekly planning, we met the Elders in Alva and then left to drive to the city at about 3.  So that left no time on Thursday, then Friday we had our conference with Elder Cardon, which lasted most of the day.  Then when that was over we went out to our car and it was covered in half an inch of ice, so we had to wait for the ONE ice scraper that was there to clean our car off.  I'm not sure why half of my mission was there and we only had one ice scraper.  Then after we left we stopped for dinner and by the time we had just got on the freeway the storm got really bad and the rain would hit out car then freeze on the windshield.  So needless to say we turned around and went back to the city.  The weather was a lot better Saturday morning so we left and came back up to Woodward and had about half of the day left.  Elder Birch and I were both pretty upset we lost so much of the time we had to work.  We are both safe and doing well which is a little bit better then having lost time to work in our area.

Ashley is still doing really well despite all of the setbacks due to weather, we were still able to see her twice last week.  We had two really  good lessons with her.  The first one we taught her about the Plan of Salvation.  She really enjoyed it and loved the different idea that it presented on God's plan for us.  We saw her again on Wednesday and that was one of the best lessons I have been in.  We started out by asking her if she had had any thoughts or feelings come to her as she had been reading the Book of Mormon.  She definitely had felt the Spirit as she had been reading.  She told us how she had felt really overwhelmed the first time that she picked the Book of Mormon up to read it.  She felt the Spirit testifying to her that the Book of Mormon was true before she had even read it.  She told us when she first sat down to read and that happened that she thought that Heavenly Father couldn't (as in he wasn't supposed to) have been telling her it was true yet because she hadn't read any of it yet, and she hadn't asked Him if it was true either.  It has been really cool to work with her because she is so open to the gospel and open to the promptings of the Spirit.  We started to talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ after that and when we started to talk about baptism, I felt like I needed to invite her to be baptized.  As I was thinking about a date to set with her I thought about asking her to be baptized on Dec. 14, but then as I opened my mouth to ask the question I invited her to be baptized on Dec. 21.  It is really amazing to see how the Spirit really will put the words that you need to speak into your mouth when you need them because I wasn't planning on saying Dec. 21.  

Now to tell you about Mission Tour.  Like I said Elder Cardon came out to speak to us.  It was such a good meeting!  One of the things he talked a lot about was prayer and the role it has in an investigators conversion, and why it is so important to have an investigator pray at the end of the first lesson.  I would tell you some of the other things he talked about but I can't remember anything else right now.  

Thanks for everything that you do for me!  I love you all and hope you have a great week!  

Love Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -November 18, 2013

Hey!

 

Well there wasn't too much that happened this past week.  We did have a couple of people invite us over for Thanksgiving dinner, so now we just need to decide where to go.  I keep telling Elder Birch that we should just plan out our day so we have 5 or 6 different Thanksgiving dinners!  That would be really fun.

 

Well this past week almost everything that we had planned for fell through.  Although we did have a lot of stuff fall through I would say that we still had a productive week.  We were finally able to go see Bob again.  We had taught him a couple of weeks ago about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.  We saw him yesterday evening and we talked to him about what our priesthood lesson was on today, loving God more then the world.  Elder Birch and I taught the lesson yesterday so we pretty much retaught him our priesthood lesson.  Do you think that would count as an investigator at church?  

 

Herman and Carolyn are still doing really well.  They are both really enjoying being members of the church.  We saw them on Thursday evening and Herman told us about a guy that he works with who said that now that Herman was a Mormon that he could go get another wife.  Herman looked at us after he told us that and said that he used to be one of those guys that would say that to Mormons.  He thought it was really funny though and he laughed about it.  

 

That was about all for this week.  Here are a couple of pictures.  The first is obviously Herman and Carolyn's baptisms.  On the Left is Elder Birch, then Carolyn, Emma, Maddie, Herman, and me.  Then the other picture is of me with a dinosaur. I hope all goes well for you this week!  Love you all tons!

 

Love Elder Woodward

 

 

Woodward, Oklahoma -November 11, 2013

Hey!

Wow it has already been a week since I wrote you last.  And another month has already come and gone.  I can't believe that we are already 1/3 of the way through the month.  Life is great and I am loving my mission!  I really can't complain about much.  Elder Birch and I had a really good week.  Well we had a good week apart from the time that we were both sick, and I lost my voice.  That wasn't so great.

So Herman and Carolyn got baptized last Saturday evening, and they were both confirmed on Sunday!  It was really cool to get to be there for their baptisms.  They showed up a little early to get changed and so we could get pictures.  When they got to the church Sister Egnew was in the kitchen getting the cookies and punch ready for after the baptism.  Herman saw her doing this, so he came up to us and said "If I would have know we would have had punch and cookies, we would have done this a long time ago."  If only it was that easy to get someone to commit to baptism, I would be spending a lot more money on punch and cookies.  It was a really good baptismal service.  The most stressful part was when the person that Herman and Carolyn had asked to baptize them showed up late.  He got there, but we were worried.  It has been really fun getting to work with them over the past four months.

Most of the week we didn't have very much going on, and the few appointments that we had cancelled.  We only had one appointment that didn't cancel on us.  It turned out to be a really good lesson though.  We went over and saw an investigator, Ashley, and talked to her about the Book of Mormon some more.  The Egnews had seen her a couple of days before and given her a copy of the Book of Mormon, and when we saw her on Saturday she had already read to 2 Nephi.  She is a really solid investigator and love everything that we have talked about so far.  Just before we left we briefly touched on the Plan of Salvation and talked about how families can be together forever.  When we told her that her face lit up.  It is going to be fun to get to keep working with her.  

So last night transfer calls came in.  Like I told you last week I was expecting to be transferred to another area, but I found out last night that I am going to be staying in Woodward for another transfer.  I was so surprised to find out I was staying here with Elder Birch for another transfer.  So again there are no changes going to be made.  Which I am ok with because there was just a lot that started to happen.  It is going to be fun though.

Well that is about all for this week.  I hope you all have a great week!  Love you all tons!

Love Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -November 4, 2013

Hello!

Well I am glad that you all enjoyed the pictures that I sent home.  I figured that Mom would really enjoy them since I haven't sent very many home.  But now you can't complain about not sending pictures, because those are all of the pictures that I had.  If I'm feeling nice I will tell you who all the pictures are with when I get home.  So I don't want to hear anything else about it for another month.  Hopefully by then I will have some more pictures.  

Here in Oklahoma I have noticed that a lot of focus is being put on missionary work as well.  Last week we had a Stake Priesthood Meeting and if I remember right every one of the speakers mentioned missionary work.  I'm not really sure why they would mention that.  Maybe I will find out one of these days.  One of the speakers there mentioned five things that the Savior needed the Aaronic Priesthood to do.  Even though he was speaking specifically to the Aaronic Priesthood, I felt like the first four were all things that the Savior needed us all to do, then the fifth one was more for the priesthood, but didn't exclude young women.  The five things were:

1.  The Savior needs you to be happy.

2.  The Savior needs you to be an example.

3.  The Savior needs you to have the Spirit with you.

4.  The Savior needs you to be ready.

5.  The Savior needs you to serve a mission.  

I really liked those 5 things and I wanted to share them with you.

It looked like all of the kids had a fun time on Halloween.  We had a really boring Halloween here.  I don't know if it just here in my mission or if it is a church wide thing, but for Halloween we were supposed to be in our apartments by 5:00.  So all that we did was sit around and do nothing.  All I really accomplished that night was learning how to juggle off of a wall.  I didn't get any candy though, so if any of you want to share...  I really like Twix by the way.

Well i am sure that you all want to know about Herman and Carolyn.  So we went and saw them last week on Tuesday evening.  While we were there we set a baptismal date with them for November 9th.  That was the date that Herman wanted to set, so that is what we are going for.  We went over the baptismal interview questions with them again to make sure that the understood everything and didn't have any questions.  So far everything is going well with them.  This Saturday they will be getting baptized, and then on Sunday they are going to get confirmed.  It has been really exciting to see them progress to the point where they were pretty much asking us to get baptized.  They are going to be such a strength to the branch here.

Oh and we finally managed to find a couple of new investigators this past week!  It is really cool how we ended up finding them.  A while ago Elder Fee texted us and said that there was a recent convert who just moved in up here that we should go see,  so being the good missionaries we are, we went to see her.  We talked to her for a couple of minutes and then left.  We tried back a couple of times, but were never able to catch her again.  So about a week and a half ago we were sitting in our apartment doing our weekly planning when we got a media referral from the mission office.  We checked who it was, and it was a name we didn't recognize but it had the same address as the recent convert we saw a month or so earlier.  We gave Talorea (the Referral) a call and asked if there was a time we could come over.  So then last Wednesday we went over and saw her.  When we got there Talorea, her husband, Rodney, and Talorea's sister all came out and sat down to talk to us.  We taught them about the Restoration and Joseph Smith.  They all really liked the story about Joseph Smith and they all said they believed it could happen.  Then at the end of the lesson we invited them to be baptized, when they came to know it was true, and they all said that they would.  Talorea's sister (sorry we don't know her name yet, but we will soon)  even said that that was something that she wanted to do.  It was a really good lesson with them, and they all seem really promising.  Oh and some other stuff that is cool about them: they are an African American family, so they are black!  =D  Then the other cool thing is that Talorea has a brother who was baptized a couple years ago, and he is now serving in the Utah Ogden Mission!  So if you ever meet an Elder Johnson who is black, I know two of his sisters and I started teaching them!  I thought that you would like to know that.

So you were right about transfers, they are next week.  So by next Monday I will find out if I am going to stay or leave.  I'm pretty sure I am going to end up getting transfered though.  Partly because I have been here for 4 months now.  One of the other reasons I think I might be leaving is because back when President Walkenhorst fist got here and when I first got to Woodward, I had an interview with him and one of the things he asked me was what I thought it would take to get 5 baptisms up in Woodward.  The other day I just thought back to that and I figured out that between Don and Francie, then Jeff, and now Herman and Carolyn, that adds up to 5.  I'm not sure if it is just a coincidence or what, but I think that I have done about all that I was supposed to do.  It's still not official if I will leave, but I'm not going to be surprised if I do.

Well that is all for this week.  I will let you know what happens next week!  I love you all and hope that you have a great week!  Bye.

Love Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -October 28, 2013

Hey Family!

 

Well It is about time that I can tell you that we had a MUCH better week then we have had in the past!  We were able to see a lot more people then we had in weeks past.  It was a pretty fun week for us though.  

 

So to start off with today, we finally got word back from President Walkenhorst about if Herman could or couldn't get baptized!  We were at the branch's trunk or treat when we got a call from President.  I didn't talk to him, but from Elder Birch's reactions to what President said I could tell it was really good news!  President told us that we had heard back and that we could go ahead with Herman and Carolyn's baptism.  Herman and Carolyn were just about to leave to go home when we got the phone call, so we stopped them and told them the good news.  Herman was so excited!  At first his reaction and all he said was "Are you kidding me?"  So they are both really excited and ready for this!  We still haven't officially set a baptismal date with them yet, but we are going over tomorrow night and will talk to them about setting a date.  Elder Birch and I were really excited about all of that happening!

 

We were able to go and see Brenda again twice last week.  Once on Tuesday and again yesterday.  On Tuesday we decided that we were going to watch the Restoration DVD with her because it had been a long time since we had taught her the Restoration.  After the video was done we asked her what she thought about it and how she felt.  She told us that she really liked it and felt really good about it.  Elder Birch pointed out that when she felt good about it, that that had been the Spirit testifying to her that it was true and that Joseph Smith really did see Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  We invited her to come to church again, but she wasn't able to make it.  She is still helping her friend out by taking her friend to church.  So we are really hoping and praying for some snow here one of these Sundays, because if there is snow, Brenda's friend won't go to church for health reasons so then Brenda can come to church with us.  Then she will keep coming with us because she likes it so much, and then she will get baptized!  Elder Birch and I have already planned everything out.  Now things just have to happen the way we planned for them to. 

 

Then we almost got a new investigator without him really even realizing he is investigating the church.  Just so you know his name is Bob.  So in the past when we have seen Bob, it has been more of a "Hi, how are you doing? Is there anything that we can help you with?  Ok bye."  This last time we went to see him, it started out the way in normally does, and then he asked us about what the church had to say about food storage, and then Bob asked us about the dates of when the church was organized and when Joseph Smith had the First vision, and so on.  So Bob pretty much asked us to give him the fist lesson without realizing that he did so.  It was really cool to see the Spirit work with him.  We ended up giving him a copy of the Book of Mormon and some scriptures to read that connect the Bible and the Book of Mormon to each other.  Like John 10:16 and 3 Nephi 15:16-21.  It was really good.

 

So overall we have had a pretty good week!  There is always more happening, so there will be more to come next week!  Love you all!  Have a great week

 

Love Elder Cameron Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -October 21, 2013

Hey Family!

Well things are still going well for me here in Woodward!  We are still working with Herman and Carolyn, and they are still doing really well.  They invited us out to their house last Thursday to have dinner with them before our lesson with them.  We still haven't heard anything new from President Walkenhorst, so we are still going over and encouraging them from time to time.  After dinner with them we taught Herman about the Stop Smoking Workshop.  Other then waiting to hear from our mission president the only other holdup is that Herman is still smoking.  I kinda think that as soon as Herman quits smoking we will hear back from President.  But that is just me.  So we taught him the workshop and he told us that he just wasn't sure if he was ready to quit yet.  He told us that he would pray that night and then let us know what he decided he was going to do.  We went back the next night and followed up with him and he told us that he felt like he really needed to.  So he is going to give the stop smoking workshop a try.  So as always there is more news to come.

We are still working with Brenda.  She is still progressing slowly.  Normally when we go over to see her we ready from the Book of Mormon with her and then go through and talk about what happened.  This past time we ready 1 Nephi 5-6 and as we were going through and explaining it, we got to the part where it talks about Lehi's genealogy and how he is related to Joseph.  When we were explaining that I felt like I needed to introduce her to family history work.  So we explained a little bit about it then invited her to go to the family history center here in Woodward.  So the next day the Egnews went and picked her up and brought her to the Family History Center.  From what I heard Brenda really liked it.  So now she knows where the church is and knows a couple of people from the branch!  It was a 2 for 1 deal.

Mary cancelled the third appointment we had in a row with her.  It is starting to get really frustrating having this happen every time.  Elder Birch and I are convinced that she is preparing herself for the zombie apocalypse.  Every time she cancels it is so she can go work on a building she owns, but she won't tell us anything about it.  The other theory that we came up with is that she is really a secret millionaire and this building is where she keeps all of her money hidden.  So who wants to take a guess as to which of those theories is right?  I am going with the zombie apocalypse.  

Oh and by the way, my vision is getting kinda bad so I am going to talk to Sister Walkenhorst about it and then have her call you to she what you have to think about it.  I just thought you would like a little forewarning.  Haha just kidding that already happened.  I am sorry for the surprise though.  I hope I didn't scare you too bad.  As you said earlier, it is Halloween soon so I thought that I would get my scary pranks out of the way.   I would have let you know, but I didn't really even think about it till Saturday night when I called her.  As of right now though, there is nothing else that is wrong.  I am doing really well and can't really complain.  

Well there isn't to much more to say.  So I am sure Mom is already counting down the days, but for those of you who don't know, I will see you all in 360 days.  It will be here before you know it.  I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Cameron Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -October 14, 2013

Dear Woodward's,

 

Well I would just like to let you know that Oklahoma is perfect and everyone goes to church every week.  It my not be the LDS church but they go to church.  Well most of them do.  Actually not really.  Even though it is the Bible belt there are still a lot of people who don't go to church.  Surprise!  The only problem left is that we need to  find those people who are ready to accept the gospel and get them interested in learning about the church.  It is all a lot harder to do then you would think.  Hopefully with all of the conference talks given on member missionary work the members up here will start to be more willing to help us and introduce us to their non-member friends.  That is something that you could all do back home!  If there is someone you know that isn't a member, talk to the missionaries and have a family home evening with the missionaries and your friends!  I can promise you that the missionaries there would really love you if you did that.  And then if you don't know who you can invite to meet with the missionaries, pray and ask Heavenly Father to help you find someone!

 

So this was another really slow week for us.  This entire past week we have hardly been able to get a hold of anyone.  Everything that we tried to do fell through, so we were left with nothing to do.  By the end of the week things started to get a little bit better.  Friday night was the most interesting night from last week.  We went to try a investigator named Alberto.  We got there and he was outside with a couple of his friends, one of which was drunk as a skunk.  We stayed there and talked to them for about an hour most of the time the drunk one kept asking us a bunch of random questions then would move on before we had the chance to answer.  It was really funny to have happen.  Nothing ended up coming out of it since Alberto's friend was so drunk and he never let anyone else say anything.  At one point he tried to tell us that we couldn't be out on our missions trying to spread the word of God unless we knew about the things that were happening in the world.  He then invited us over to his house to watch the news with him one evening.  Needless to say I don't think we will be going over any time soon. 

 

Well like I said it was a slow week so there isn't a whole lot to mention.  One of these days I will have some really exciting news to tell you.  You will just have to sit and wait until that day comes.  I love you all!  Have a fantastic week!

 

Love Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -October 7, 2013

Hello!

Well Conference is now over.  It goes by way to fast as a missionary.  Other then conference last week there wasn't a whole lot that has happened here in Woodward.

We were able to go and see Herman and Carolyn last Friday night.  We didn't teach them anything new, we just went over to encourage them and to update them on what is happening.  They are both progressing really well still and are coming to church regularly.  We haven't been able to set a baptismal date with them yet, because we have to wait to hear back from President Walkenhorst before we can move forward.  It is a long complicated process.

The area didn't end up getting split like we were told it was going to, so it is still just Elder Birch and I down here.  We are getting along really well right now.  The most contention we have had between us was last Friday night during the Utah State BYU football game.  It would have been nice to see Utah State win but oh well. 

Well this is going to be a short letter.  There wasn't to much exciting news!  I hope that you all have a great week!  Love you all!

Love Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -September 30, 2013

Hey Everyone!

Thanks for all of the Birthday wishes.  I got the package that you sent this morning.Well it was here on Saturday, but I had to go to the post office to pick it up, so I got it this morning.  Thanks for everything that you got me!  It was awesome!  I wasn't really expecting another tie, but I won't complain.  

Well as for this week I am sure that you are all dying to know what has happened.  I guess I will just start off by telling you what is going to be happening this next transfer.  So I am going to be staying here in Woodward with Elder Birch.  Nothing changes.  Although last night I was about ready to hurt someone!  Either our Zone Leaders or our District Leader though it would be funny to play a prank on me and tell me I was getting transfered last night.  Our District Leader called back a couple of minutes later and told us that the Zone Leaders had called them back and told us it was a joke, but when we called the Zone Leaders to find out the didn't know what we were talking about.  To say they least I was really mad.  So Woodward will now be the longest I have stayed in an area and I will be with a companion for more then a transfer!  This is going to be kinda weird.

On Wednesday evening President Walkenhorst drove up here to Woodward to meet with Herman and Carolyn.  I don't really know what happened during their meeting, but I guess it was good.  After they were all finished and they came back out President Told us that he felt like everything was ok, so he was going to push for their baptism to happen.  So now we just have to wait to hear from President about what the plan for them is. 

Last week was a really slow week for us so there isn't much to tell about.  Everything is going really well!  I am having a great time here.  I love you all and hope your week goes well! 

Love Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -September 23, 2013

Hello!

Well if nothing else, this past week has been a trial of our faith.  We have had a lot of great things happen, but just as many not so great things.  So it has been a pretty fun week for Elder Birch and I.  We will get to all of that later though.

Well Monday was a long day for us.  Since there is absolutely nothing to do here in Woodward other then sit and watch the grass grow,  we mostly just sat around and did nothing.  I think I might have taken a nap at one point.  It was a pretty boring P-day.  Then in the evening all of the plans we had made fell through.  So nothing much for Monday. 

Last Tuesday we are able to have another really good lesson with Herman and Carolyn.  To say it went really good is an understatement, it went FANTASTIC!  Herman and Carolyn took us out to dinner before our lesson with them.  While we were at dinner Herman turned to Elder Birch and I and asked when we were going to talk about baptism with them again since it had been a while.  We laughed at that and told him we would talk about it during the lesson.  So we finished eating and came over to the church for our lesson.  We started out with a prayer like always and then dove right into the lesson.  We started out by asking Herman and Carolyn if they had been able to talk about if they wanted to be baptized.  They sat there for a couple of seconds before Herman told us that he felt like he was ready to be baptized.  I was so excited I almost did a happy dance!  So we talked with them and set a date for them to be baptized on.  We then had our lesson and finished teaching them the rest of the commandments and everything they needed to be taught before baptism.  We talked about the Word of Wisdom again and committed them to live it.  They both said they would.  They both committed to live the Law of Chastity as well. Everything was going super well and we weren't having any problems.  They were ok with everything that we taught them.  The biggest concern that Herman had was that he would have to stop working on Sundays.  Carolyn was fine with everything.  Right at the very end of the lesson we encountered some problems with the date we set, so for now their baptismal date is being put on hold until further notice.    We saw them again last night because we had to take them some stuff that we had for them.  They still seemed to be doing well even with everything that had happened.  After we left Elder Birch and I both felt like this was the real trial of their faith and that they are both dealing with it super well.  Elder Birch and I both feel like everything is going to be ok though.

We had a couple of other lessons with two of our investigators last week.  We was Mary and Brenda.  When we went and saw Brenda we taught her about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  She was really involved with the lesson and I felt like she understood everything she was being taught.  At the end of the lesson we invited her to be baptized, but she said no this time because she has her own church.  It was a good thing that she told us that though because it showed us that she was really thinking about the things we had been teaching her.  We also followed up with her to see if she had been able to pray and ask Heavenly father if the Book of Mormon was true.  She told us that she has received and answer that the Book of Mormon was true.  So we are making slow progress with her, but we are making progress.  Our lesson with Mary wasn't my favorite in the world. Mary likes to talk a whole lot, so most of the time we are there she was talking.  Which is good except for when she doesn't stay on topic and the things she talks about have nothing to do with the Plan of Salvation.  But that is ok. 

Other then that there hasn't been very much that has happened this past week.  We are doing our best to keep the work moving along, so things are going well.  Love you all!

Love Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -September 16, 2013

Hey Family,

Well I am sorry to hear about the game with the "team who must not be named."  It is a real bummer to hear that they are such bad sports.  It does go to show one thing though, the only way the "team who must not be named" can beat Thunder is by being a bunch of POOR sports and insulting our team.  It also shows that those parents are not teaching their kids to have charity, which is the pure love of Christ.  The important thing to take away from this is that Thunder is by far the better team for keeping their heads held high and not lowering themselves to the poor standards that the "team who must not be named" has lowered themselves to.  The time will soon come that they will get what the deserve, because as we all know, Karma is a real. . . ankle biter.  You know like those little annoying yappy dogs that bit your ankles, then you turn around to get it off of you, then you see the little dogs great big pit bull friend who looks like he is going to eat you.  That is what it is going to be like except "they who must not be named" are going to be the ones getting chased by the pit bull. 

On a different note,  I am 98% sure that Herman and Carolyn are going to be getting baptized in a couple of weeks.  It isn't set in stone yet, but I fell like it will happen.  This past week Elder Birch and I went over to their house and had a great lesson with them this past week.  It was a GREAT lesson.  We went over planning to reteach the Word of Wisdom and a couple of the other commandments.  We didn't get anywhere near those though.  We started out by asking them if they had any questions about anything pretty much, and Herman brought up his concern about why there are three degrees of glory and why those people who choose to make the wrong choices aren't just cast down to "heck."  We had been trying to avoid this topic because it has been one of the big holdups for Herman in the past.  Not anymore though!  =D (That is me being happy).  Luckily the Spirit came to our aid, because I had no idea how to respond to that.  We related his question back to the pre-earth life where we made the choice to follow Christ's plan for us instead of following Satan.  We then explained to them how the three degrees of glory was how God was rewarding us for making the choice to follow Christ and how Heavenly Father didn't want to punish us by sending us to heck when we made the choice to follow Christ before this life.  We then explained how not everyone is going to do everything that they need to to return to Heavenly Father and that is why there are the three kingdoms.  After we finished the only other thing he said about that topic was that how we explained to three kingdoms made a lot more sense to him and he was starting to see why there are three kingdoms.  It was super cool!  Then after that we followed up and asked Herman and Carolyn if they had been able to talk about whether or not they wanted to be baptized.  They hadn't talked about it yet, but Herman sat forward in his chair and told us that after our Sunday School lesson at church (it was about the martyrdom of Joseph Smith) that he knew that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God.  So we committed them to talk about baptism before we came back and they said they would.  So Elder Birch and I are excited to see what they have to say when we see them tomorrow evening.

Friday we got to go on exchanges with the other set of Elders in our district, so I was up in Alva for the evening.  I had a pretty good time up there.  Alva was just barely opened up this transfer, so there weren't a whole bunch of people for us to go see like there are here in Woodward.  We managed to stay busy the entire day and got lots of work done.  We went to see two of their investigators, Mike and Kendra, that evening.  We had a good lesson with them.  We taught the Restoration and invited them to read and pray about the Book of Mormon.  One of the funny things that happened while we were there was one of their sons really likes to do buckles up, so most of the lesson he was sitting next to my camelbak doing the buckles up, then I would undo them so he could do them back up.  When we got up to leave I was holding my camelbak by the strap on top[ and the little boy camed up and grabbed my bag and tried to take it from me.  It was to bad that it was as big as he is and probably weighed as much as he did too. 

Well there wasn't much else that happened this week.  It was a slower week for us and a lot of stuff fell through.  That is the life of a missionary though.  So at this point we are just focusing on this week and doing the best we can and not focusing on last week.  So there is lots of exciting things to come.  Thanks for the package you sent.  The day that I got the package I actually went to staples and bought more pens because I was about out,  then we got back from our meeting in the city, I got the package and there were more pens.  So I am set with pens for a long time.  Thanks for everything.  I love you all tons!  I hope you have a great week and have fun!

Love Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -September 9, 2013

Dear Family,

Life continues to go well for us here in Woodward.  Last week was a little slower but it was one of the best weeks we have had so far!  We had a lot of good things happen and other not so good things happen.

So to start out this week.  Last Tuesday Jeff came out teaching with us!  He was really excited when we asked him to come and he didn't even hesitate to say yes.  We took him out to see our investigators Jamie and Heidi.  They weren't there so we were about to leave when Jamie pulled up.  She was just getting back from a football game so she didn't have time for a lesson.  She told us that we could come back on Thursday or Friday so that was ok.  After we left there we went and tried a couple of other potential investigators, but we were only able to see one of them.  His name is Alberto and is a referral from a member.  We sat down and talked to him about the Christ and the things He did on earth.  We then started to go into the apostasy when Jeff started to say something that threw us way off track and Jeff kept going with it until it got to the point where there was no was we could tie it back into the lesson, so we finished up there for the night.  After we took Jeff back home Elder Birch and I decided that we needed to introduce Jeff to Preach My Gospel.  Overall we had a pretty good night with Jeff though.

When we went back to Jamie and Heidi's on Friday to try and have another lesson with them we got some good and bad news.  The good news is that Heidi has been reading the Book of Mormon a lot and her nephew thinks she might join the church.  The bad news is that Jamie and her family moved up to Dodge Kansas on Saturday and so Heidi would be going back home to OKC after they got moved.  So we lost two of our most promising investigators last week.  Elder Birch and I were so sad when we found out they were moving, but that is life so we just picked up and moved on.

The only other big news this week is that this upcoming transfer our area is going to be split.  So we are going to be getting two more missionaries up here.  I was not very excited to hear that news,  mostly because I don't want to give up any of the people I have been working with up here. So it is going to be interesting to see what is going to happen next transfer.

Well that is all for this week.  I hope that you all have a good week and I am excited to hear about the Laroca game.  Good luck Emmie and Darcy!  You will do great!  I love you all!

Love, Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -September 2, 2013

Dear Woodward's

It is great to hear from you again!  This past week has been a really good one for Elder Birch and I here in Oklahoma.  We had a lot of stuff happen and we saw a lot of miracles!  I can't believe how fast this week flew by though.  It literally seems like it was just yesterday that I was sitting here writing to you.  There is so much that is happening, but there isn't nearly enough time to get it all done.  So I guess I will just start off by answering your questions then move onto what has happened this week.

Woodward, Oklahoma is a pretty small.  It is a little bit bigger then Smithfield is, but it doesn't have any other cities nearby.  The next closest town is Mooreland and that is 10 miles away.  There is one small movie theatre here and an old grain elevator.  The majority of the people here are really nice, most of them just aren't interested in the church.  A lot of people in Oklahoma think that a church is a church and why would I drive 10 miles to go to the LDS church when I can walk across the street to my baptist church.  So it can be frustrating at times, but when you find those people who have been prepared to heard the gospel, it is that much more rewarding.  I'm sure that there are a lot of people who will Bible bash with us, we have just been lucky enough to be able to avoid those people.  I really don't like to bash with people because it is completely useless!  So I try not to bash.  Most of the preachers won't even talk to us because they don't like us or the church, then they go around telling all the members of their congregations a bunch of false doctrine about what we believe.  They do this to give their members a false perspective on the church so that they won't want to listen to us, because if the members from other churches start coming to ours that is less money that goes into the preachers pocket.  I'm not sure if you know this, but a part of the money other churches collect from tithing and other donations goes to the preacher for their "service."  There are so many churches out here that are run like a business would be.  The more people at their church the more money in their pocket.  Its dumb.  There aren't enough active members here in the Woodward area to have a ward, so we have a branch.  Most of the branch comes from two main families, the Alley's and the Smith's.  Without those two families that branch would be about half as big as it is.  On average we have about 65 members come each week.  There are a whole lot of less actives though.  Most of the members will help the missionaries if they have time to.  Most of them stay pretty busy so it is hard to get them out with us.  On a typical P-day here we wake up, study, came email, go shopping for food, wash the car, and then we do whatever we have time for.  Last week Elder Birch and I both took naps. Who knows what we will do today.  No football though.  Football is a very big thing here in Woodward.  That is most of what we hear about from day to day.  Football this, football that. 

So know onto my week.

Since Don, Francie, and Jeff were all baptized we don't have very many progressing investigators anymore.  The two that we still have are Herman and Carolyn.  They took us out to dinner on Friday night before our lesson with them.  After dinner we came back to the church to have a lesson.  In my opinion that was one of the best lessons that we have had with them.  We talked to them about obedience to the commandments, why should we follow the commandments, blessings that come from keeping them, so on.  When we had planned for what we were going to teach them we decided that we were going to invite them to be baptized again to see if they would commit to be baptized.  When we were about to finish up Elder Birch took the lead and invited them to be baptized.  Right after we asked them they pause and looked at each other to see who would talk first.  Herman talked first and said that he would know it is coming when it is coming.  So to translate to English from Okie,  he said when I feel like it is time to be baptized I will let you know.  Carolyn didn't say anything right away so Herman started talking again.  He told us that he wanted to know for sure that this church is true like we know it is before he wants to be baptized.  When he said that I told them about when I was eight and I was baptized I didn't know for myself that the church is true, all I knew was that I needed to be baptized so that is what I wanted to do.  I told them how since I was baptized that I have come to know for myself that the church is true.  I think that that hit Herman pretty hard.  After that he said something but I don't remember what it was.  Carolyn jumped in at this point and said something, but I don't remember that either.  I do know that everything that they said made me think of Ether 12:6 that says "wherefore dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith."  I had Herman read that scripture and I could tell he read a little bit ahead because he started shaking his head like he had read it wrong, but he kept reading and after he finished he looked up at me gave me a "I can't believe that you just pulled that scripture on me" look.  After he looked at me I told Herman and Carolyn that we didn't want to force anything on them and that we would let them decide if they wanted to be baptized.  Then before either of them could respond to the scripture we told them we would let them think about that and we finished the lesson, said a prayer and went on our way.  So we left them with quite a bit to think about. 

The other really cool experience we had this week started on Tuesday.  There was a potential investigator that Elder Park and I tracted into about 4 or 5 weeks ago.  We offered to pray with her and she invited us in.  We couldn't go in because it was just us so she invited us to come back later that evening when her husband would be home.  I don't remember why, but Elder Park and I didn't go back that evening and every time we planned to go back after that something happened so we didn't get the chance to go back.  So we planned to go stop by and see them on Tuesday and things worked out to where we were able to stop and see them.  Elder Birch and I went up, knocked on the door and a different lady answered the door.  So we offered to say a prayer and she let us.  After the prayer we asked if we could stop by and share a message about Jesus Christ with her.  She said we could stop by tomorrow when her sister and brother in law would be there.  So the next day we made sure to stop by and see them.  We were able to get in and have a lesson.  We found out the second lady, Heidi, was visiting her sister, Jamie, for about a week and a half.  So we taught them about the Restoration.  At the beginning Heidi just sat back and listened and was skeptical about what we were saying and Jamie kinda just sat there.  Jamie asked us a lot of questions throughout the lesson mostly about how do we know this church is true and about prophets.  We got to the point of the lesson where we talked about the Book of Mormon and how Joseph Smith translated it.  After we introduced that Book of Mormon and read part of the introduction and Moroni 10: 3-5, Jamie and Heidi both asked if the could have a copy of the Book of Mormon.  We gladly gave them both a copy and committed them to read and pray to know if it was true.  They both committed to do that.  After we promised them that as they read and prayed that they could receive an answer, Jamie told us about how her entire life she has been waiting for an Ah-ha moment where she knows for herself that something is true.  We told her if she read and prayed like she said she would that she would have that Ah-ha moment.  We then invited them both to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized.  Jamie started to nod her head saying she would, but Heidi jumped in and asked if she would have to be re baptized, so we weren't able to set a baptismal dat with them.  Afterwards Elder Birch and I decided that the reason Elder Park and I never went back was because we were supposed to go over again when Heidi was visiting Jamie.  That was a miracle that we were able to stop by and catch both of them.

So other then that we had a normal week.  I hope you all have a good week.  I love you all.

Love Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -August 26, 2013

Dear Family,

This has been an interesting week for me.  There has been quite a bit of stuff that has happened, but it has all blended together so I don't remember most of it.  I will do my best to let you know everything that has happened. But before all of that, good job Darcy and Emmie for beating Laroca.  That was obviously the big news of the week since we got two email that only talked about the game.  So now we know who the #1 team in the state is, and so does everyone else. 

Well I guess it is time to share my big news for the week.  I'm still alive!!!  Yeah that is about all though.  So other things that have happened this week.  Wednesday was transfers, so I got my new companion.  His name is Elder Birch.  He is a super young guy.  He turned 18 in April and just barely graduated from high school.  He is practically a baby still.  He is SUPER young.  It is fun being a trainer.  I have really enjoyed it so far.  It is kinda funny to hear all of the things Elder Birch says.  There have been a lot of times where he has asked me if he could go to the bathroom or go get a drink and so on.  One of these times I think I am going to tell him he can't go to the bathroom or something like that to see how he reacts.  So other things about Elder Birch,  he is from Farminton, Utah.  Big surprise that he is a Utah boy.  He comes from a very SMALL family of four, three boys one girl.  I don't know what is up with it and all of these new missionaries coming out and having a girlfriend at home.  I don't think that they realise that by the time they get home, some other RM is going to have come home and stolen their girlfiend.  That is just how life works as a missionary. I am so glad that I didn't have a girlfriend when I came out.

So here is a picture of Jeff at his baptism.  He is still doing really well.  He is having a good time and is loving the church.  The other picture is of me and Elder Birch.  No explanations really needed. 

Elder Woodward, Jeff, Elder Egnew, and Elder Park at Jeff's baptism

Elder Birch and Elder Woodward

Well that is all for this week.  Have a good week at school and all you kids in school be good for Mom AND Dad.  They take such good care of you.  I love you all.

Love Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -August 19, 2013

Hello!

Well to start out CONGRADULATIONS TO DARCY AND EMMIE FOR TAKING 1ST PLACE!!! YAHOOOOOOOOOOO, that is so cool!

Ok so now onto stuff that all of you want to hear about.  My crazy life as a missionary.  Well for starters it was a busy week leading up to Jeffs baptism!  On Wednesday I had to go down to OKC to a meeting that was being held for everyone who is going to be training.  There are 33 new missionaries coming out this transfer.  That is sch a big number.  A lot more then the 5 that came out with me.  Most of what was talked about was what was expected of us as trainers and how to be a good trainer.  I think that this next transfer there are going to be a lot of 18 year old missionaries that have just graduated coming out to the field.  It was very enlightening.  There was a part where the AP's called up the parents of the missionaries coming out and asked them questions such as "What do you expect of your son/daughters trainer?" and "Why is it important for the trainer to be obedient?"  It made me realize that there is a lot more to being a trainer then what I thought.  It was a much needed meeting.  Elder Park and I made it back up to Woodward in time for our appointment with two of our investigators, Herman and Carolyn.  We had a super good lesson with them.  We found out that one of the things holding Herman back was that he just wanted to know more of the history of the church.  So to resolve that concern we gave him a copy of "Our Heritage" and told him to read it.  Hopefully that will help him.  I really think that if we work with them we can get them to be baptized on the 31st.  It is a little bit of a stretch, but it is worth a shot. 

Ok so now onto Jeff.  He got baptized on Saturday and confirmed yesterday.  The only bad parts about all of it was that he showed up to his own baptism late and he was late to church on Sunday.  We really need to get him a watch or something.  Elder Park and I were so worried that he wasn't going to make it to church.  At the baptism I was starting to think that Jeff didn't want to get out of the baptismal font.  He had to be baptized three times.  The first time his right wrist didn't go under the the second time his left wrist didn't go under.  The third time Elder Egnew made sure he went all the way under.  I may have just been imagining it, but I think Elder Egnew held Jeff under a little bit longer to make sure that he was all the way under. 

So I guess the other bit of big news is that I gave a talk in sacrament meeting yesterday without any help from Mom or Dad.  =)  I talked about our purpose of life on Earth. And I even managed to ramble on for 10 minutes.  I didn't think it was a very good talk but there were a couple of people who told me I gave a good talk.  So who knows if it was actually good or if they were just being nice.  I think they were just being nice.

So by now Mom is probably dying to know if I am staying in Woodward.  Well I will be here for at least one more transfer, hopefully longer.  I still don't know who my new companion will be.  I won't find out until Wednesday since he is straight from the MTC.  It should be interesting to find out. 

Well that is all from me.  Love you all.  Have a great week.  Bye

Love Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -August 12, 2013

Dear Family, 

This has been a pretty exciting week for me here in Woodward.  There is lots of exciting news to tell you about, but I don't know if I will be able to tell you all about my week in a minute, so I will take a little more time. 

So to start off, Don and Francis got baptized on Saturday!!!  Yay!!!  It was a long day leading up to this, but it was all worth it in the end.  On Friday I stayed down in Clinton, Oklahoma because we needed to do an exchange so that the District Leader could come up and do Don and Francis's baptismal interview.  On Saturday up until I left to come back to Woodward I spent the entire day in the Clinton Elder's apartment because the Elder I was with got sick.  So I spent all day fixing their bikes because they were in pretty bad condition.  Elder Park and Elder Powley got back to Clinton a little after 3:30 and Elder Park and I were on our way back to Woodward by 4.  We got back, had dinner with Don, Francis and their Family, then went to the church to make sure everything was ready for the baptism.  The baptism itself went really well.  Don and Francis only had to be dunked once, so I guess they went completely under.  After the baptism we were invited to go back over to Don and Francis's house to have some pie.  After the pie on the drive home Elder Park noticed that we had missed a call from Elder Fee.  So we called him back when we got to the apartment and I talked to him.  He asked us how the baptism went and a couple other things.  He then broke the news and told me that I would be training a new missionary next transfer.  I was defiantly not expecting that to happen.  I thought that Elder Park and I would be together for another transfer, but I was wrong.  So this Wednesday I will be going down to OKC to a meeting for all of the missionaries that will be training.  It will be interesting to see what happens.

So this Saturday Jeff is going to get baptized.  He has been meeting with the missionaries since March and is ready to be baptized.  I think it is really cool that I have been able to work with Jeff while I've been here.  I don't think that it is a coincidence that I have been able to come teach him.  He can hardly wait for Saturday to come.  Last week when we asked him who he wanted to baptize him, he asked me, Elder Park, and Elder Egnew if we could all baptize him together.  Unfortunately it doesn't quite work out like that, so he asked Elder Egnew to baptize him. We are all super excited for him.

Well that is about all for this week.  I will let you know how things go with the trainers meeting and Jeff's baptism.  I hope you all have a great week. Love you guys.

Love Elder Cameron Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -August 5, 2013

Hello Woodward Family,

Well another week has flown by along with another month and almost a year since I got my mission call to Oklahoma Oklahoma City.  It is kinda hard to believe how fast it is all flying by.  But I am sure that none of you really care about any of that.  I'm sure that you are all a lot more interested in how I am doing and how everything is going here in Woodward.

So to start out I'll tell you about my most boring day of the past week.  It was defiantly Friday due to the fact that something I ate somewhere made me super sick and caused me to throw up and be miserable almost all day long.  Well now that that is out of the way I can tell you about some of the exciting things that happened this week. 

So last Wednesday we got to go down to Oklahoma City for Temple Conference.  It was a super cool day!  Right at the beginning  President Walkenhorst talked to us and told us a little bit of the vision he has gained for our mission since he got here.  He had been thinking a lot about it since he got here, and he felt confident that as a mission, we could have 100 convert baptisms in the month of August.  It is going to take a lot of hard work and dedication.  I am super excited for this though.  It is going to push everyone to their limits.  After that we got to go through and do a temple session.  Mom, Dad, Adam, Camille, and anyone else who can go through the temple, if you haven't gone through within the past week, I would suggest that you take the time to go do a session.  They have a new video for the endowment and it is amazing.  Super cool.  That is all I will say about that though.  After the temple we had a training by the AP's and then another training from President Walkenhorst.  Both of those trainings were focused on aligning our will with the Lord's and making those changes necessary so that we can get 100 baptisms this month.  After Temple Conference was done we started our two hour drive back to Woodward.  So that was our day.

So I have some super exciting news to tell you.  I have one (hopefully two) investigators who are going to be baptized this weekend!  But I guess for now I can tell you the story about the miracle that might have lead to both of the investigators getting baptized.  So,  I have told you about our investigator Francis.  This story is going to involve her husband Don though. So Don and Francis were both being taught before I got to the area.  The past couple of weeks we have really been focusing on working with Francis and helping her progress towards baptism because one time when the missionaries were teaching her she told them she wanted to be baptized and that she had already asked her son (he is a member) to baptize her.  So at that point we jumped right on the bandwagon and started to work with her, but we ended up leaving Don behind.  Don continued to sit in on the lessons and he kept learning, but he never really said much about anything while we were there.  Then a couple of nights ago (Thursday August 1) we were there teaching Francis a lesson and Don was there again.  After the lesson Elder Park and I left in a hurry because we were late for our next appointment, so we weren't able to talk to Don.  But Elder and Sister Egnew stayed a little bit longer and spent some time talking with Don.  I don't know what they said to him, but whatever they said it was good.  So then next day (Friday August 2) we got a text from Don and Francis's daughter in law that told us the next time we went to see Don and Francis we needed to ask Don about whether he wanted to get baptized.  So we went back the next day (Saturday August 3) so we could talk to them.  We were able to get in and sit down with them.  We started talking to Don about baptism and whether or not he would want to get baptized with his wife on August 10th.  He said a couple of things, but the one that I remember was "we have been going to church together for 44 years now and I don't want you to start going to church without me."  So we told him that if he wanted to get baptized with his wife in one week he would have to start living the Word of Wisdom today (Saturday August 3).  Just before we left that night we offered to give Don a Priesthood blessing to help him be able to give up chewing tobacco.  After the blessing you could see a huge change in his countenance.  I could defiantly see that the blessing was helping immediately after the blessing.  Unfortunately we couldn't tell him for sure that he would for sure be able to be baptized in a week with his wife due to the fact that he hadn't been to church three times.  So we called up our Mission President on Sunday, explained the situation to him and how he works on Sunday and he has been to church twice already and that he wants to get baptized with his wife.  Then President Walkenhorst told us that we could go ahead and baptize Don with his wife, Francis, because he didn't see that the fact that Don hadn't been to church three times yet was a good enough reason to keep him from being able to be baptized with his wife.  So we saw them again last night and told him that if he was ready to be baptized by Saturday he could get baptized.  It was super duper cool.  So I will tell you how things go with their baptisms next week.

Other good news!  Jeff, the man from Haiti, is probably going to be baptized on the 17th of August.  As you know we have been working with him a lot and we have taught him everything he needs to know to be baptized.  So we had originally scheduled his baptismal date for August 24th due to the fact that Stake Conference was on the 17th.  I was a little worried about whether or not I would still be here in Woodward because transfers is on the 21st of the month.  No, I don't know what is happening yet, but the reason I was worried is because if my past trends with how long I've been in an area continue, I would be leaving on the 21st.  But luckily for me I don't have to worry anymore.  Stake conference was moved to the 24th of the month, so we are moving Jeff's baptism forward a week, so I will be here for sure.  It was great news!

I hope you have a good week and that this letter was long enough for you Mom.  Love you all.

Love Elder Cameron Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -July 29, 2013

Elder Woodward, Elder Park, and Elder Egnew in Woodward, Oklahoma

Woodward, Oklahoma

Dear Woodward Clan,

Is the weather staring to cooperate yet?  Probably not.  Maybe you should take it as a sign that you aren't supposed to go out and do anything fun without me.  So you should all just sit around the house like a bunch of bums and do absolutely nothing for the next 15 months.  I think that would work out pretty well.

Well as for me, I had a pretty good week here in Woodward.  I am still alive and breathing.  Other then that, there isn't to much more to say.  Ok I guess I will say more then that or else Mom would probably drive all the way out here and strangle me or something like that.

Well for starters, things are going really well with Jeff, our Haitian investigator.  We met with him twice last week and he is progressing really well.  We talked to him about setting a baptismal date for August 24th.  After we set the date he started telling us about how ready he is to be baptized.  He made the decision that he doesn't want to wait any longer for his wife.  He told us he didn't want to wait because his wife is "flippy floppy."  He is super excited to be baptized and doesn't want to wait any longer.

We had a huge miracle happen with another one of our investigators.  Her name is Francis.  We had a baptismal date set with her for August 10th, but in order for her to be able to be baptized then she would have had to come to church three times.  She has only been able to come twice due to the fact that she works every Sunday until 12:00.  So she needed to come to church either yesterday or next Sunday so that she could get baptized.  So the past couple of weeks we have been trying to come up with a solution so that she could be able to come to church.  Things got to the point where the only thing that she could do was ask her boss if she could have a schedule change and get Sundays off.  We promised her that if she asked her boss things would work out and she would be able to get Sundays off.  Well she talked to her boss and asked to have Sundays off so that she could come to church, but her boss said that the only thing she could do was ask another worker to switch with her, but chances were that the other worker would quit before she switched hours.  So Francis wasn't even going to ask the other worker to switch.  Then a couple of days later the other worker talked to her boss and told him that she needed to get her schedule switched around.  So everything worked out to where Francis is going to be able to come to church next Sunday and then be baptized on August 10th.  It was defiantly an answer to her prayers and all of ours and it shows that the Lord will prepare a way for us to live the commandments. 

I think that the Bishop that Cecil met was Bishop Grey from when I was in the Edmond 2nd ward.  Woodward is defiantly a western town.  It is the smallest town I have been in but covers the largest area of land.  If I remember right we cover 4000 square miles in the Woodward branch.  It is a pretty big area.  I really don't have a favorite thing that I have eaten.  All of the food is pretty good.  Some of it is a lot better then some of the other stuff, but its all ok. 

Ok so a little bit about Elder Park.  He is from Shelley, Idaho.  I still have no idea where that is.  He is 19 years old and come from a small family of 5 or 6.  I don't remember.  He is shorter then I am, but taller then Kelsey.  He is in the middle in case you couldn't guess. 

Well That is about all.  Oklahoma is really flat.  Love you guys.  Have a good week.

Love Elder Woodward

Woodward, Oklahoma -July 22, 2013

Dear Woodward Clan,

Another week has flown by for me as well, and as usual I am still trying to think of what I want to write as well.  This was a pretty good week for us.  There were a couple of days where almost everything we had planned for fell through, but we managed to pull through and make the most of it. 

Tuesday was a crazy scary day for us.  We had another lesson with Jeff, during which he decided he wanted to talk and talk and talk.  It was kinda frustrating because we couldn't really get the lesson we had planned for in because he talked so much, but that actually turned out for the better.  We had the Senior Couple, Elder and Sister Egnew, at the lesson with us and they managed to save it all.  From all of the stories Jeff told us Sister Egnew remembered about a concern that Jeff had brought up before I got here.  You will never guess what that concern was.  You all know how Haiti is and the crazy voodoo and other "dark" stuff that happens there.  So because Jeff grew up in Haiti with all that "stuff" his mom had always told him to never let anyone put their hands on his head to bless him.  We kinda went into panic mode at this point because there are so many things done in the church by the laying on of hands.  So when we left after the lesson we had no idea what to do.  All we were able to do was ask Jeff to pray and ask Heavenly Father if it was ok to be blessed by the laying on of hands in the church.  His prayer and ours were defiantly  answered by the time we saw him again on Thursday because when we asked him if he still had any concerns about it he told us he didn't and he understood that it was ok in the church by Priesthood authority.  So that was a HUGE miracle for us this past week.

We were able to set a baptismal date with an investigator, Brenda, last Thursday.  This was the first lesson we had with her, so we were teaching the Restoration.  At the part where we were teaching her about the Book of Mormon we committed her to read it then I gave her some promised blessings that would come as she read each day.  After I finished she got the biggest smile on her face and I could tell that she felt the Spirit.  The entire lesson went super well then at the end I felt like we needed to invite her to be baptized.  So I turned to the picture in the front of the Book of Mormon where Alma is baptizing at the Waters of Mormon and I showed it to Elder Park and threw him under the bus to invite her.  I just told him that he could do it and then I stopped talking until he invited her to be baptized.  She accepted and committed to August 31.  After we left Elder Park told me he was surprised when I showed him the picture and had him invite her to baptism, but he did it.  We are going to see her again tomorrow so news on that next week.

Friday our day got all messed up due to the fact that our dishwasher broke and decided to leak water everywhere.  Well everywhere under the tile flooring in the kitchen.  So we had to get a hold of the apartment complex manager and get someone to come over and look at it.  The good news is that we get a new dishwasher now.  Bad news is that we have to worry about what happens underneath the tile now.  The maintenance worker said it will just dry right up and we shouldn't have to worry about anything.  So we will see what happens this week.

Finishing up Elder Park's training is going pretty good.  There are sometimes that I feel like he is training me.  He is a super good missionary.  His trainer did a really good job with the first half of his training and I am still struggling to figure out what I am doing.  It is all going really well though.  We are getting along really well.  We haven't had any problems so far.  So things are going great!  On the 31st we get to go down to the City to go to Temple Conference.  I am so excited for that since I haven't been to the temple since December.

Well that is about all.  I will be sure to brag to everyone I meet about how awesome my family is and how good they are at everything.  I will be sure to show Jeff a picture of the family tomorrow night.  Yes I did get the package you sent.  Thank you for it.  Well now that is all.  I love you guys!  Have a good week!

Love Elder Cameron Woodward